While children still went to school, the elderly retired and most continued to work their menial nine to five day jobs, life had been unraveling for years. If the war continued, it was only a matter of time before the war effort became an all-encompassing endeavor and everyone was forced to become involved.
I shook my head. With every passing day, my memories of home failed more and more to acknowledge how much of a cluster fuck it had become. Instead, they reverted back to older, happier memories, muddying my perspective. In many ways I had no desire or even a reason to go home. I even almost liked it here. But I couldn’t live with myself if I one day learned we’d somehow messed with the future, irrevocably altering the lives of billions, all because of my own failings.
With that thought in mind, I remembered we couldn’t go home yet, and why.
I shifted my attention back to the men and women around me. They seemed gloomy and certainly unfriendly towards strangers. Only the barmaids seemed to pay us any attention – barmaids who were also quite attractive. I suppose they had to be. It took more than a steady wine pouring hand to squeeze as much money as possible from passing travelers just like Santino, who sat at the end of the bar with an attractive, red headed barmaid in his lap. He laughed and joked with her innocently so I ignored them, analyzing the remaining patrons instead. I had already classified some as potential threats, an old habit born from years of service in the military and a few missions that had me play the part of spy more than operator. Cross-referencing nervous eye contact with body posture and clothing style had made it easy to identify those I had to worry about.
But my precautions were merely just that. I was confident no one would try anything out here. Despite Agrippina’s best efforts to vilify us, our reputation was generally positive in the empire’s back country. Crime in the Roman Empire was more than rampant, its issues plaguing the empire far more than they did in the modern world. Kidnappings, murders, thefts, battery, sexual crimes, and the like were no more prevalent than they were back home, but there was no one here to help them. There was no real police force or justice system to protect them, so with nothing else to do, we’d taken on the role of Sheriffs of the Roman Empire, available for hire to anyone with a grievance that could use a helping hand and met our minimum moral standards. After a few months, we had achieved the moniker, Vani, the plural form of the Latin word, vanus, which in this context meant, “shadow” or “stealth,” in reference to how we did business.
Real sneaky like.
Which is what brought us to this dingy tavern today.
We were on a mission to help a grieving Roman widow, who lost her husband and two sons to roaming vagabonds who had raided her Gaulic villa. The family had been of equestrian class, upper echelon Roman business owners with more money than they knew what to do with. They had been vacationing in the lush Gaulic countryside when the attack had happened. Her only surviving family member was her seventeen year old daughter, who had been taken by the bandits. God only knows what they had in mind for her, but she’d been captured over a week ago, and the question of her survival was uncertain.
I glanced at my watch, one of the few bits of modern equipment still operational thanks to the rechargeable power of the sun. It also remained a useful tool because while Romans had no such device, they could still tell time fairly accurately.
I noted that it was just before noon on this cloudy and cool spring day.
Time to start paying attention.
I finished my surveillance and looked at the last person of note in the building.
She was seated across from me, her back to the door and her head leaning over a bowl of stew that she was voraciously shoveling into her mouth. She wore tight fitting combat fatigues made out of a water resistant but breathable material lined with Kevlar, arranged with protective polyethylene gel pads. The pads were squishy when inert, but turned as rigid as titanium when impacted by any sizable force. They were comfortable and protective, the next generation of body armor back home.
Draped over her back was a grey colored cape of local design – typical wear for travelers. Its exterior was nondescript, but had been modified as reversible, with the side now pressed against her back outfitted with numerous strips of multi-colored frayed cloth. It was a make-shift ghilli suit, not as efficient as the full body suits she and I had, but one that was useful in a pinch if needed. It had been her idea, and one that had become quite useful over the years.
Her hair was tied back messily with sticks and more modern feminine hair products, but some of it dangled to either side of her face, obstructing her feeding motion and constantly finding its way into her stew. She had grown it so long that it fell to the small of her back now, just above her backside. Currently, it looked as though it hadn’t been washed in weeks and dirt and grime covered her lovely face as well. The poor woman hadn’t bathed in days, and the way she ate suggested she hadn’t eaten in just as long either.
She looked horrible, but I knew what lay behind the filth.
Her delicate features, some combination of German and Turkish that had first come together back when Istanbul was still Constantinople, had produced a rare beauty. Light chestnut skin, black hair, but German features with full lips, high cheekbones, wide open eyes, and neat eyebrows made her a sight to see.
Helena noticed my inspection, and while still leaning over her bowl, looked up at me with those vibrant green eyes that almost seemed to glow.
“What?” She asked as broth streamed down the side of her mouth.
I laughed. She was a mess, not even pausing to swallow before she spoke, apparently still famished while she worked on her second serving. Even so, she was well within her rights to look as she did and gorge herself like she was. She’d been in the field for the past three days, and probably hadn’t had much time to eat or refresh herself. It had been her turn to retrieve supplies from our hidden cache that remained hidden about a day’s march away. She’d returned a few hours ago but hadn’t been able to relax until just now, having posted herself a few miles away from the tavern, waiting for our targets to arrive. When she sighted them an hour ago, she indicated they were taking their time, but on their way. Thirty minutes later – now – she was sitting across from me, a fresh batch of God-knows-what awaiting her eager spoon
She’d brought with her another journal from the cache, a spot we had discovered after a delivery had found its way to us a few months after we’d fled Rome. It contained all the gear we’d brought with us from the future with a brief note. All it said was, “G & M, Amici”.
“G & M, Friends”.
It was from our Praetorian friends Gaius and Marcus. Of all the people we could trust in our new lives, they were amongst the foremost, and it must have been a pain in the ass for them to arrange for the delivery of our supplies. Those containers were damn heavy.
As for our supplies, we didn’t have much left. Spare ammunition, a few extra rifles, replacement parts, survival gear and clothing. We only had a few dozen MREs left, and had been force to relegate them to survival food a year ago. Besides our weapons, we were living pretty much like every other ancient person.
“What?” Helena repeated insistently as she stirred her dinner.
“Nothing,” I told her, a smile still on my face. “I just can’t get over how beautiful you look tonight.”
She kicked me in the shin beneath the table and I felt a spark of pain shoot up my leg. Despite her beauty, she had a fiery and violent temper. I’d lost count of how many times she’d punched, poked, kicked, or prodded me over the years. Her temper stemmed from a repressive father and an entire life before joining the Pope’s military trapped in a prearranged engagement. The relationship had been everything but loving or intimate, but before they could wed, her fiancé had died in a car accident, and she had been free of it just before I met her. We had quickly connected, sharing annoying fathers and sad love lives, and it hadn’t taken long before I’d learned just how volatile she was, and I loved her for it.
“Sorry,” I said, rubbing my shin. “It’s just that I want to take you home and have my way with you.”
She pointed her spoon at me accusingly, an annoyed expression on her face. “You haven’t said anything like that to me in months, so don’t think I’m going to be impressed now.”
I frowned. Relationships were hard, especially when forced to live the way we had. We weren’t the crazily intimate couple we had been after the first few years. The love and affection was still there, just buried beneath years of survival, pain, and a sense of loss at our predicament. We had nothing permanent to latch onto, nothing for us to call our own. All we had was each other, and over time, even that sentiment grew flimsy. Lately, things had grown worse, but I figured it was just a phase.
Probably.
I ignored her flippancy and tried to push away the annoyance I felt at it. “Since you seem to be done gluttonizing yourself, I think it’s time I asked whether you brought everything we need or not?”
She looked down at her bowl, perhaps noticing for the first time that she’d been scraping away at nothing but wood for the past twenty seconds. Wiping her mouth on a sleeve, she pushed it away. It was quickly swiped up by a passing barmaid who smiled at me. I gave her a wink along with a smile full of teeth, only to receive an ice cold stare from Helena in return.
“Yes,” she replied sourly, holding up one of the three large bags she’d brought with her. “Everything on the list is here, plus a few things I added at the last moment. Plenty of ammo for each of us, some C4, NVGs, a few MREs, don’t worry, no beef patties…”
“Thanks,” I interrupted. For some reason the beef patties had never sat well with me.
She ignored my interruption. “…Santino’s UAV, our ghilli suits, a grappling hook with rope, tranquilizer darts, your wetsuit and Santino’s, along with your breathing apparatuses, some soap and shampoo for me, three bedrolls, and… two tents.” She described the last item with a bit of disdain, which caused me to wince. Normally, we shared a tent with no problem, and have a good time of it, but lately the cramped space had gotten awkward.
I broke eye contact with her for a moment, distractedly flaking away some decaying meat that had fused itself with the table. “Did you get in contact with our sleeper?”
“Yes,” she said. “His answer was, ‘I’ll think about it.’”
I nodded. No surprise there.
All the vital details concluded, we found ourselves with little else to talk about. I spread my hands out along the edge of the table and gave her an awkward smile. Her expression was blank as she stared deadpanned in my direction, clearly not interested in further conversation. I put my hands in my lap and tried to think of something to say, but just before the silence grew unbearable, a third figure sat down at the table.
I glanced over to see Santino plop himself down between us, apparently finished womanizing his waitress. I looked at his scarred and roguish face, the result of a grenade accident during basic that left him with a series of scars along his left cheek and brow, scars that women always found dashing. He sported a short, but scruffy beard these days, a practice he’d picked up during his days in Delta, and had grown out his hair to just before his shoulders, just as I had – only his was curly, whereas mine was more wavy. His most enduring physical quality, however, was his shit eating grin that spread from ear to ear, and never seemed to leave his face. Even in the heat of battle, the man’s smile rarely faded.
He leaned his chair back and crossed his feet up on the table, interlocking his hands atop his stomach. He looked at me, then to Helena, back to me and then her again, before staring directly between us.
“Boy… you could cut the tension between you two with a spork.” He shifted his look towards each of us in turn again, hoping for a laugh, before settling between us with a sigh. “I miss sporks.”
Both Helena and I looked at him with mixed looks of pity and annoyance. I’d long ago determined Santino would always be Santino. Even if the world flipped over on its axis, he would never change. It was a personality quirk I had gotten a kick out of since I’d known him but one that had grown slowly on Helena.
I heard a commotion outside and looked over Helena’s shoulder at the door. I saw agitated men outside the windows tying up their horses.
“Looks like it’s time for you to go,” Santino informed Helena.
She looked back at us, her eyes lingering on mine just slightly before nodding and getting to her feet. She stood ,but before she could straighten completely, she suddenly doubled over, one hand reaching for the table to steady herself, the other to her abdomen, her face cringing in pain.
“Are you all right?” Santino asked, rising to help.
She held out the arm she had used to steady herself before answering. “I’m fine.”
Grabbing one of our bags and pulling her long traveler cloak’s hood over her head, she quickly transformed from the beautiful but disheveled woman I’d known for years, to yet another random female denizen of the town. She turned quickly and left.
Ever since Helena had been at death’s door all those years ago, she’d been experiencing an odd, intermittent pain in her abdomen. It was probably nothing serious, just some side effect from the extensive procedure needed to save her life. Even so, I’ve seen her in some of our most tender moments cry out for no apparent reason, only to collapse in pain, her teeth grinding against themselves. It was because of moments like those that I felt her pain as well. I should have been there to protect her when it happened like I promised her I would, but I hadn’t, and in the end, she’d paid for it, and the only person I blamed was myself.
“What’s wrong with you two, anyway?” Santino asked as he sat back down, watching Helena open the door and leave.
“I really don’t know,” I replied, watching her go as well. “Things have been kinda shaky for a few months now, but I don’t know where I went wrong. She’s been acting weird.”
“Women,” Santino said mockingly. “What good are they, anyway?”
“Well, lots of things,” I told him, not rising to the bait. “They’re pretty to look at, fun to play with and are the vessels through which life is created.”
“That all?” Santino asked, unimpressed. “Anything else?”
“Well,” I thought about it, the last few months replaying in my mind. “Yeah… you’re probably right.”
“Like I said,” Santino finished with a wink, helpful as ever.
When the tavern door finally opened again, I folded my arms across my chest and waited patiently as the men responsible for a family’s murder and the kidnapping of their only daughter walked inside the room and approached our table. I put on my business face and shut down my emotions, allowing me the fortitude to do what I needed, no matter what that entailed.
I’d need to because we were going to change the timeline today, and even though I should, I couldn’t care less. Not when a young girl’s life was at stake.
The five men who walked in were tall, burly and had really bad blond hair – long and fizzed with gnarly curls – and only a few of them had all their teeth. They came bursting in as though they owned the joint, and didn’t even pause as they marched straight for my table. They stopped short with looks of anger and intimidation on their faces, but some with a hint of fear as well.
“You!” The lead man said in heavily accented Latin. “Vani. We were told we could find you here!”
Santino looked lazily at the speaker, his feet atop the table. “We’ve been here for two days, champ. Way to keep up.”
I smiled at my hand while I picked at some grime underneath my fingernails. I did my best to look uninterested. Santino took a long swig of the dry wine in his cup, his eyes still locked on the speaker.
The Gauls looked amongst themselves in confusion, unsure how to respond to such a statement. One of them, perhaps the dumbest of the group, had the bright idea of placing a hand on Santino’s shoulder. Santino reacted instantly, snatching the man’s hand in h
is own and twisting it violently while forcing his attacker to his knees. The wrist didn’t break, but the pain was so bad that Santino simply kicked the man to the ground with a light tap of his foot. The entire exercise went down all the while Santino took another pull of his wine.
The downed victim clutched his hand while the leader, who merely smiled, took a seat in the chair Helena had just vacated. He calmly folded his hands together and looked directly at me, ignoring Santino, who was once again preoccupied with the cute barmaid he had been flirting with earlier.
“If you are Vani,” he began, “what are you doing here with the likes of us?” He spread his left arm out to encompass the entirety of the bar, numerous heads turning to look in our directions.
The ones who did were the ones I’d earlier identified as potential problems.
I ignored him and held out my tumbler for Santino’s wench to refill as she sat perched on his lap. She laughed as he tickled her and I brought the cup to my lips, noticing the seated man’s patience wan and his hand move threateningly towards his lap. His body language suggested he was about to stand up, but I held up a hand to dissuade any aggression. Santino continued his games.
“There is no need for violence, gentlemen,” I informed them. “My name is Buzz, and this is my friend, Woody.” I gestured at Santino who smiled at the men stupidly. Their confusion was more evident than ever. I leaned in and lowered my voice just a bit. “I’ll just be honest with you. Life isn’t as exciting as it used to be and we’re not getting paid nearly what we want, so we’re seeking… alternative employment opportunities.”
“I find that difficult to believe,” the man in charge said as he sat back in his chair. His face seemed deep in thought, something I hadn’t been so sure he was capable of. But he must have run out of synapses quickly, as his face relaxed and he glanced between Santino and me. “Are there more of you?”
I shrugged. Between Santino, Helena and I, we’d never given anyone a real opportunity to tell how many of us there really were. Besides the quick regrouping here, the only time the three of us were together was when we were off on our own in the wilderness. Our missions were mostly conducted in pairs, consisting of the few combinations the three of us allotted. Because of our precaution, some people thought there were at least five of us, and I had heard the random rumor of as many as ten.
To Crown a Caesar (The Praetorian Series: Book II) Page 2